


let me name the stars for you

by procrastinatingbookworm



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reunions, Touch-Starved, it's a reunion fic i don't know what to tell you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 16:20:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29281353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/procrastinatingbookworm/pseuds/procrastinatingbookworm
Summary: “Beloved,” Patroclus interrupts, and the word is a blow to his chest and a breath of fresh air at once. “I forgive you. I’ve long since forgiven you. I didn’t tell you to risk it all so we could exchange sorrows.”Patroclus and Achilles reunite.
Relationships: Achilles/Patroclus (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 172





	let me name the stars for you

When Patroclus is feeling particularly maudlin, he likes to say—to no one in particular, or to Zagreus, if he happens to be around—that he’s old friends with misery. It laid its head down on his chest a long time ago, long before his death, and he’s tended it ever since.

He could say it began in Troy—wars are well-known for their misery—but that wouldn’t be right. He could say it began on Skyros, when Achilles chose fame over longevity, but that wouldn’t be quite right either. 

For as little as he remembers his childhood, he recognizes the low ache of unhappiness from his dream-like recollections of being young. Even when he was with Achilles, it lingered in the stillness, waiting to catch hold of Patroclus’ hand whenever Achilles let it go.

It was a game, of sorts. Patroclus had always fancied it one, when he was young. A game of outrunning, of keeping his heart away from the cold hands that tried to wrap around it.

He’d lost, irretrievably, when he’d realized that Achilles had abandoned him here.

That was when he’d started to drink from the Lethe.

Actually  _ forgetting _ was far more of a process than drinking a palmful of water. Shades were nothing but their memories, after all. To actually erase the self was as much a question of intent as it was of volume.

When Patroclus drinks, his memories grow dull. They soften at the edges, like a sword within its sheath. The shape and weight of them is there but the edges cannot cut him.

It’s meant as a kindness, he’s sure. A gentle midpoint between remembering and forgetting. A way for the shades that wander Elysium as warriors to remain proud in themselves, without the hurts of their mortal lives encroaching on their eternal reward.

It had worked, for a while. Even for Patroclus. He hadn’t been content, but his pain had been a quiet, manageable thing. If he was still enough, if he kept his voice quiet, it would keep him company.

Recently, there’s been a new hurt alongside the old.

It started to bloom in his chest not long after Zagreus started to visit him, and Patroclus is terribly afraid to name it.

(Fear is for the weak, he knows that, he  _ knows _ . He’s still afraid. He’s been afraid for so long, he’s not sure how not to be.)

He’s afraid to name it, because he thinks it might be  _ hope _ .

Patroclus doesn’t know what to do with hope. It’s a stranger to him—ten years in Troy, and it had long since stopped following him home. Immeasurable days alone in Elysium, and all he should think to do with hope is spit in its face.

And yet… 

_ I’ll make this right, _ Zagreus had said, bold and certain.  _ You deserve better. The both of you. _

“The last time I trusted a godly prince with my wellbeing,” Patroclus says aloud, to the river at his back. “It got me killed.”

He yanks up a handful of too-green grass by the roots, half-turns to toss it into the Lethe, and turns back to watch the empty space regrow before his eyes. Nothing changes in Elysium, no matter what anyone does. Death is cheap, the afterlife is cheaper. 

“Though I suppose I have little left to lose, now.”

There’s Zagreus, of course. Proud and insistent and so like Achilles. Kind to a fault and stubborn as anything.

Patroclus has him to lose, now. Zagreus might escape, or be killed in some permanent way, or grow tired of listening to Patroclus’ bitterness, or no longer need his help, or any number of other things that would keep him away.

And that’s… fine. 

It’s fine, Patroclus can live—or  _ not _ live, as the case may be—without him. It’ll just be another grief to carry in his throat.

That’s fine. He could bear it, if Zagreus stopped appearing. He could bear having to wonder forever if it was breaking Achilles’ pact that had proved too much of an insult to Zagreus’ father, if the pity Zagreus had for Patroclus proved to lead him to ruin.

Yet more guilt, yet more grief. He could bear it. He hadn’t  _ asked  _ Zagreus to get involved.

Not until recently, at least.

He can bear it, if he must. 

If not, the Lethe is there, and if Zagreus disappeared, well… Patroclus would have no one left that would worry about him, and no one to report his state to Achilles. He could fade away in peace.

“Why wait until it hurts?” Patroclus asks, barely louder than the rush of the river. “Fear is for the weak, after all.”

He knows the answer to that.

“Hope is a fool’s game,” he sighs, dropping his chin to his chest.

“I disagree.”

Patroclus jolts upright.

In the place Patroclus has grown used to seeing Zagreus, at the top of the stairs leading up from the doors, is Achilles.

He’s dressed as if for court, instead of war—chiton and cloak both worn long, hair loose around his face. His feet are bare, gold against Elysium’s greens. The hand holding his spear is gauntleted in leather instead of bronze.

“Achilles,” Patroclus says.

Achilles drops his spear. It falls into the grass, the slight noise of it lost beneath the sound of the river.

“Patroclus,” Achilles says. Quiet. More breath than voice. The syllables wrench out of his throat. Fully-formed, cradled with the tenderness he always gives them, but drawn taut, nearly pained.

Then he drops to his knees.

For a moment, Patroclus’ vision curls in on itself with fear. He’s seen far too many men die to  _ not _ be struck with a moment of terror when Achilles falls forward.

But he isn’t injured. There’s no blood. No sword, no spear, no arrow in his back. Achilles is whole and unhurt as he crawls across the grass to Patroclus’ side.

His face is gaunt. He looks older than when Patroclus left him, older by  _ years. _ His hair is dull, unwashed and uncared for, and his eyes are bright against his sallow skin, shining with tears.

“Achilles,” Patroclus repeats.

“Pat,” Achilles says, his voice breaking like a dropped pot. “Oh, Pat.”

He reaches out and grasps Patroclus’ hands.

It  _ hurts _ .

It sears against his skin like a flame, jolting up his arms and setting his heart pounding, forcing him to tug his hands away or risk falling to pieces.

Achilles flinches, drawing his hands back to his chest. His eyes overflow, and Patroclus’ hands twitch with the urge to brush the tears from his cheeks, cradle his face and kiss him until he’s smiling again.

“Are you angry with me?” Achilles asks, in a miserable thread of a voice.

“No,” Patroclus says, half-surprised to find that it’s the truth. “I’m not angry. But your touch… it was as though I’d grasped hot bronze.”

Achilles wrings his hands together for a moment, then nods in quiet understanding. “You’ve been… you’ve been alone here, haven’t you?”

Patroclus nods.

“Like food on a starved stomach,” Achilles says, fighting the words out. “A man that has gone without touch will be more sensitive to it.” His lip wobbles, childishly. “It’s… since you’ve been… Pat, I’m so… I’m so sorry.”

Achilles starts to cry in earnest, and Patroclus aches to hold him, for all that it would burn.

At a loss, he offers Achilles the edge of his cloak, and Achilles clutches it like a lifeline, rubbing it against his face and throat.

“Pat,” he groans, like a dying man, every line of his body straining towards Patroclus. “Pat, Patroclus, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I was a fool. I beg your forgiveness, Patroclus, I’m so—”

“Beloved,” Patroclus interrupts, and the word is a blow to his chest and a breath of fresh air at once. “I forgive you. I’ve long since forgiven you. I didn’t tell you to risk it all so we could exchange sorrows.”

Achilles’ face twists with emotion, and he makes another low, grieving sound, pressing Patroclus’ cloak against his face. His weight drops forward until he’s nearly prostrate, his forehead pressed to Patroclus’ thigh.

It takes effort not to knee him in the face, but Patroclus manages, though he tastes blood biting his lip in the process.

The point of contact prickles uncomfortably, but it’s bearable. It isn’t so much pain as it’s  _ change _ —food on an empty stomach, like Achilles said, or the heat of a flame on frigid fingers.

Hesitantly, he rests his hand on Achilles’ head, lacing his fingers into his curls. “Breathe, beloved,” he says, when Achilles sobs at the contact. “I am with you.”

That, at least, seems to get through to him. Achilles straightens, Patroclus’ cloak still clutched in his hands.

“Beloved,” Achilles murmurs. “Patroclus, my most beloved.”

Patroclus brushes a tear from Achilles’ cheek with his knuckles. Even that slight brush of skin sends pain shooting up his arm, but the way Achilles’ face gentles is more than worth it. 

“I am with you,” he repeats.

Achilles’ smile is like the sun.


End file.
